It takes four seconds to hit the water

It takes four seconds to hit the water after leaping from San Fransisco’s Golden Gate bridge. For many who take the leap of fate it is, as intended, the last four seconds of their lives. Few survive. One who did is Ken Baldwin, who jumped in 1985. He later recalled thinking during his four-second freefall that,  'I instantly realised that everything in my life I'd thought was unfixable was totally fixable--except for having just jumped.' Now, that is a statement for posterity. That is a statement for Facebook. And it now seems that posterity and Facebook may well be one in the same.
A NZ Herald report this morning says that by the end of the century there will be more dead people on Facebook than living. The Herald is reporting on a claim by University of Massachusetts statistician, Hachem Sadikki, who describes Facebook as the world’s largest digital graveyard. I have no way off disputing Mr Sadikki’s claim, so I accept it. However, initially it made me uncomfortable. I thought it morbid, possibly voyeuristic. But, then I thought: why not?Through Facebook we have the opportunity to leave a little piece of ourselves for posterity—for future generations; our children, their children and their children’s children. It is not morbid. It is a gift. And, after all, generations before us have left diaries for future generations.
Yes, Facebook is more complex than a diary, but even that has merit. Without diminishing the written diary, I feel Facebook provides a greater insight into our daily lives: who we engaged with, who were our “friends”, what we did, how we felt, how stupid (largely, our photos) we could be, what we enjoyed and what we hated. And if we start now with that thought, we can even leave our pithy little sayings to posterity—something I am now doing on Mr Baldwin’s behalf.
Facebook has a policy of not automatically deleting a dead person’s Facebook page. Nor should they. Surely that should be left to the family or friends of the deceased.
But what they (Facebook) can do is allow us to nominate a ‘legacy owner’ who is empowered to keep our Facebook page alive and refreshed long after we are dead—a living dead legacy. Future generations might even want to use the social media site to send back messages to long-dead generations.
The only problem I see with that, is if they get a reply.

Robin Williams

A lot has been written and will continue to be written about the death of Robin Williams. We greet the deaths of our funny men with particular poignancy; primarily for the pleasure they gave us. Sadly, that poignancy is heightened for us in Mr Williams’s case by the method of his death and his sincere love and respect for New Zealand. He was from all accounts a special person and the messages from his family and fellow celebrities document that with great eloquence. Much greater than I could offer. So rather than attempt that I must rather use this Fryday to pass on a gift that Mr Williams himself gave us—some of the pithy saying and axioms he has left us over the years. For these I am indebted to a resilient and always supportive friend, Ed, who has been of even greater help to me of late. Here in is own words are the observations of an immensely talented man—Robin Williams:

·      Do you think God gets stoned? I think so … look at the platypus.

·      In England, if you commit a crime, the police do not have a gun and you do not have a gun. If you commit a crime, the police will say: 'Stop, or I will say stop again.

·      If it is the Psychic Network, why do they need a phone number?

·      People say satire is dead. It is not dead; it is alive and living in the White House.

·      Cocaine is God's way of saying that you are making too much money.

·      I want to thank my father … the man who, when I said I wanted to be an actor, he said: 'Wonderful, just have a backup profession like welding.' Thank you.

·      We had gay burglars the other night. They broke in and rearranged the furniture.

·      I suffer from severe dyslexia – I was the only kid on my block at Halloween to go trick or trout.

·      Cricket is basically baseball on Valium.

·      Politics: Poli, a Latin word meaning many; and tics meaning, bloodsucking creatures.

·      What is right is what is left if you do everything else wrong.

·      I wonder what chairs think about all day: 'oh, here comes another asshole.

·      They call it freebasing. It is not free; it costs you your house! It should be called homebasing!

·      I walked into my son's room the other day, and he has four screens going at the same time. He's watching a movie on one screen, playing a game on another, downloading something on this one, texting on that one, people say: 'He's got ADD.' Fuck that, he's multitasking.

And my favourite…

You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.